


Personal Growth

by atmilliways



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Gen, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens), What Are Hips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:13:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23862853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/atmilliways
Summary: Crowley in Eden, transforming to human form for the first time and figuring out how legs work.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Personal Growth

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to the lovely Milla Marleena! I hope this is something like what you had in mind. ❤️

Eden had existed for several days, and Crawly had been thoughtfully worrying an apple pip between his fangs and flickery tongue for most of them. He had watched Adam. He had watched Eve. He had watched Adam and Eve together until a great loneliness had overtaken him, and then slithered eastward to the nearest Gate to watch its angelic guardian, instead. Through it all he’d pushed the lone pip around his mouth, balanced it on the tips of his tongue, even idly toyed with the idea of piercing it with a fang-tip. 

In the end, he dug a tiny hole in the ground and buried the pip, just to see what would happen. Then he slithered atop a flat, sunwarmed rock and _stretched._

Crawly stretched until his tail split and spread in two different directions, and his scales bristled into hair or smoothed into soft human skin. He stretched until some of his rib bones fused and lengthened and bent at the newly-formed elbows, fingers stretching into the dappled sunlight falling through the tree canopy above. At the end of his new legs, as his kneecaps popped uncomfortably into place, his toes spread and wiggled experimentally. Slowly, drawing from memory, he sat clumsily upright. 

_Weird_ , he thought, looking down at himself. He’d elected to mimic Adam’s body shape from the navel up and Eve’s from the lap down, because keeping the sensitive bits internal just seemed to make the most sense, but there were definitely differences. Where the First Humans were dark, he was as pale as a grub wiggling in the dirt under a freshly lifted stone. There was still a faint pattern on his skin—nothing like the repeating canvas of glossy scales, but freckles that reminded him pleasantly of the stars he’d helped hang in the sky eons ago. Crawly also, in an echo of his snake form, was pretty much straight up and down, with muscle evenly distributed throughout his lanky body. 

Now for the tricky part. He took a fortifying breath, then launched himself off the comforting warmth of the rock. 

The Serpent of Eden rocketed to his feet, balanced on them. . . . 

. . . For about two seconds. Then he fell forward and landed flat on his face. 

_Fucking bipeds_ , he blessed to himself, and tried again. His second attempt was slower, more cautious, and took advantage of a fruit sapling that, had he not been distracted by his efforts, he might have realized hadn’t been there before he’d begun this little experiment. 

The problem, he realized as he tottered haphazardly around the clearing from hand-hold to hand-hold, was hips. Crawly had spent hours observing how toes gripped the grass and soil for stability, how calves and thighs flexed and moved through a stride, and (from above) how arms could be thrown out to correct imperfections in balance. But his eyesight hadn’t been geared for great distance, and hips were mostly out of his range of accurate sight. With some cautious testing he found he was able to twist at the waist without falling over . . . but what were the hips supposed to _do_ while he walked?

By the time he’d worked out a sort of balancing and counterbalancing sway, the growth in the center of the clearing had progressed beyond sapling and was well on its way to being a proper tree. Crawly rested his bare back against it, wiggling slightly to find the most comfortable spot for his knobbly human spine to rest against the pleasantly scratchy bark. He’d never planted anything before; maybe it could be a nice hobby while he wore this shape, making something besides himself push and wiggle its way up from the dirt. He wondered if the fruit would be any good. 

Crawly patted the tree with an approximation of Adam’s proprietorial air while naming the animals and hissed, “Malussss domesssssssstica.” He smirked to himself, his earthy-red hair stretching to brush his shoulders, almost as long as Eve’s. “Grow fasssster. Grow _fruit_. I have plansssss for you. . . .”


End file.
